I Never Knew You
by swpf
Summary: Another Shane post finale songfic. This one is a two shot.
1. I Never Knew You

Another one of my songfics. It was originally a one shot, but I was told to add another chapter, so I did. The Song for this Chapter is called "I Never Knew You" by Cage.

All characters mentioned in this are the property of Illen Chaiken and Showtime.

Shane was in one of her states again. Blood shoot eyes and complexion paler than usual. Nausea and headaches.

I I

I I

She thought she could handle it. Her friends thought she could handle it. But she couldn't. There was no way she could.

Playing devil's advocate against herself, she had blamed Jenny's death on herself and sought fit to punish herself. Her old life, the life she thought she'd left behind a long time ago began to creep up on her until she was enveloped in it completely.

The line between reality and the world of deluded pseudo-fantasy that had become her dreams began to blur along with her vision. She right was back where she was years ago before her friends came into her life and the streets weren't nearly as friendly.

_**You're always dying inside that much closer to home  
On a crowded street corner surrounded by people all alone**_

But as she sat down near a wall and began to lower head to stare at the hard, cruel concrete below her, he caught a glimpse of something. She raised her head and mouth opened in disbelief.

_**Pain in the heart, rain in the dark, the womb is glum and bitter  
She walks around the corner, it's like she brought the sun with her**_

She had to be dreaming, this couldn't be real. But it couldn't be anyone else. She was unmistakable, no matter how long it had been since she'd seen her last.

_**Then everything just brightened up, I couldn't make this up  
My fingers in my eyes as she walked by like I was waking up**_

She rubbed her eyes, did a double take and blinked. It was her, it had be. Carmen was alive and well and only a few feet away from her. But she didn't notice, she could notice. Shane was hidden the shadows of a tall buildings alley. She couldn't just let her walk away. But she couldn't say anything. She was too shocked. She just stood and watched her walk away but found her legs moving beneath her.

_**And so many words, I couldn't string a sentence together to bother her  
I instantly forgot all my plans and started to follow her**_

And Shane knew it was ridiculous, but that was how her life was going these days. Crazy, insane, unbelievably wrong. And one of the few right things was in front of her. She couldn't help but wish things were right again.

_**It's like the sky opened and God handed you directly to me  
I know it sounds crazy but so is life, I'm sinking  
And feeling like your heart is beating solely for me**_

She continued to follow her but kept her distance, not wanting to scare her.

_What if she doesn't want to see me? I know she doesn't want to see me. But I really want to see her. She's so beautiful. She hasn't changed. But neither have I. That's my problem._

She couldn't help but stare, but Shane at least tried not to gawk. Her decorum was already lacking, being almost too drunk and high to walk down the street.

_**Your legs are long and toned, you must be walking home  
I love the way your lips move when you're talking on your phone  
Intoxicating, your truly undue impurities  
Plague every thought of you while I'm trailing you like you're security**_

Her already staggered steps were starting to slow down as Carmen stopped at a crosswalk. Shane hung back and leaned up against a light post, watching her. Her hurt to even do that much. She thought about the past three years without Carmen, the things she'd done in that time, and how much she wished Carmen was there for that time instead.

It had to have been fate that brought them together again. Except that, they weren't together again. Except Shane didn't believe in fate. Shane didn't really believe in anything and she certainly did not believe in herself. But there was this part of her that wished she could turn back time and make things right.

Make everything right. So Jenny would be alive and still be her best friend instead of her so-called girlfriend. So Alice wouldn't be fighting off criminal charges. So she had never left Carmen. So Dana had never died.

So many things were so wrong.

Through her eyes, now a color mixture of green, brown, and red, she watched the crossing light and change and Carmen cross. She waited until Carmen was on the other side before she crossed herself, but by then the light had changed.

She heard the screeching of tires and man cursing at her for crossing without looking. The man's voice was coming from inside a taxi that had just barely hit her, but she didn't care.

_**Lost, we couldn't know our paths would cross but time knew it  
Feet sticking out the window, a opportunity climbing through it  
Pain for sale, looking to find a new taker  
Chance to speak blown, when you looked at me I looked in the newspaper…**_

She knew Carmen would have heard the noise and turned back, so she ran off, ignoring the pain. She hid behind some bushes on the other side of the street. She was safe from view but her paranoia was starting to get the better of her. She made sure she was in the clear before stepping out, no doubt with twigs and things in her hair, but she could care less. She spotted Carmen who had resumed her way to her destination.

As Shane continued to follow, she realized she was entering a residential neighborhood.

_This must be where Carmen lives. _

It was a little piece of lower-rent suburbia and Carmen was nearing in on her house because she took her key out. Shane watched her step inside.

_**I'm miles out of my way, creepy, I want more  
Was gonna turn back but you stuck your key in your front door  
I'm standing across the street, stars that aligned us to meet  
Standing outside with your trash feeling incomplete…**_

Shane stood across the street and watched, silently, not sure if she should do anything. She wanted to go forward. She wanted to knock on Carmen's door and look her for real and not from afar. She wanted to look into her eyes and see the same girl she fell in love with, not the stranger she'd just followed home. She wanted her life back.

_**Because the sky opened and God handed you directly to me  
I know it sounds crazy but so is life, I'm sinking  
And feeling like your heart is beating solely for me  
Unlikely, impossible, I couldn't dream to think it**_

There were suddenly voices in her head, telling her turn back and go away and run to hole in the ground she came from. Telling her to stand up and stop being a coward and do what she should have done a long time ago. Voices telling her to wait for a sign, that's it's too early. Voices telling her, 'it's been three years, since when is that early?'.

_**There's something happening between us you can't deceive  
I'm so in over my head I've learned to breathe in it**_

She didn't know what was happening anymore.

She was across the street.

No, she was in front of Carmen's door. Her finger was reaching out for the doorbell.

No, she watching herself make all these foolish choices and do all these foolish actions.

No, she was there. Definitely there. Finger inching forward, hear pounding out of her chest, blood beating in her ears, making the soundtrack to her terror. She couldn't believe she was doing this. Was she doing this? It made no sense. Carmen was supposed to be happy. Shane couldn't make her happy.

But she wanted to. My God, she wanted to. Wanted to try again.

But she shouldn't. She couldn't. She would.

She was.

The door opened almost instantly and Carmen was standing right there, just as shocked as Shane was that she was there.

Looking at one another, eye to eye, nobody saying a word. Until finally Shane opened her mouth to say something. Before she could even get the words out, she collapsed and everything went black.

_**Face to face for the first time, you feel what I'm feeling  
Selfishly no longer breathing because of me**_

"Shane?"


	2. Fck You Lucy

This is the second shot, more on Carmen's point of view. The song used is called "Fck You Lucy" by Atmosphere.

All characters mentioned in this are the property of Illen Chaiken and Showtime.

I I

I I

_**Leave me, never would you. If you should, could I live?  
Leave me, never would you. If you should, could I live?**_

Carmen watched as Shane finally woke up from her brief detox coma. She was there, being slightly observant, but sat a fair distance away from the bed instead of right next to it.

To say that she was shocked to find Shane on her doorstep was an understatement, especially considering she was drunk and high out of her mind at the time. But, shocked or not, she wasn't going to let Shane die. Not even she deserved that.

Instead of rushing over at the sound of Shane stirring, Carmen casually closed her book and looked over at her. More curious than anything, she stood up and approached the bed slowly. Shane's eyes gradually opened and Carmen could tell from her rapid blinking that she couldn't believe she was actually there.

"You in the hospital," Carmen told her.

Her voice wasn't breaking. It wasn't shaky. It wasn't much of anything, really. She was just stating facts, almost as though she was too bored to say it. Then…

"You really don't get much smarter with time, do you, Shane?"

Had anyone else said those words, Shane would've probably just told them to fuck off, but instead she asked: "Are you going to leave me now?"

The expression on Carmen's face, an unreadable one that betrayed no emotion, did not change as she asked: "Do you want me to?"

"No."

_**She said that she still wants a friendship.  
She can't live her life without me as a friend.  
I can't figure out why I'd give a damn to what she wants.  
I don't understand the now before the then.**_

Carmen just shrugged like she could've seen that one coming, but she didn't leave. She just moved herself and her book back to her chair across the room.

"Do you want me to explain myself?" Shane asked.

She had forced herself to sit up in her bed.

Carmen shrugged again, not lifting her eyes from the pages as she looked for her lost spot in the book. "I think passing out on my porch while strung out on drugs and alcohol is pretty self explanatory, minus the fact that you were on my porch. And as for the other thing: no, I really don't want you to explain yourself."

And Carmen wasn't lying. She considered herself better off for not knowing why Shane had left her at the altar. That moment, painful as it was had led to new-found success. In a way, getting dumped in front of her family and friends was just what she needed to push her into her work. Out of that pain had come the beats and mixes and songs that had gotten her name out there. Shane turned out to be just the right amount of suffering for her work.

So, no, she didn't want to hear it. She was more than content not knowing.

_**  
Most of this garbage I write.  
That these people seem to like.  
Is about you.  
And how I let you infect my life.**_

"I'm sorry," Shane said.

"I know," Carmen said.

At least this time when Shane looked up at her, she wasn't reading her book. But Carmen's eyes boring into her was something she hadn't expected. She didn't look angry, she didn't look sad. She was in some sort of emotional limbo and Shane couldn't help but wonder if she had done this to her.

"I don't know why I left."  
_**  
And if they got to know you.  
I doubt that they would see it.  
They'd wonder what I showed you.  
How you could leave it…**_

"Shane…" Carmen sighed, standing up.

"No, I mean, I had a reason when I did it, it just doesn't… It doesn't make sense anymore."

"Shane-"

_**Fuck you Lucy for defining my existence  
Fuck you and your differences…**_

"And I'm sorry that I was such an asshole to you," continued. She hung her head in shame as she spoke. "Not just when we first met but even when we started dating. And I'm sorry about turning away from you and pretending like I didn't care when you and Jenny were dating. And I'm so sorry that I cheated on you and I never really apologized for it. And mostly, I'm sorry that I proposed to you. I shouldn't have done that, but I was so scared of losing you. I know you only said yes to make me feel better, I just didn't know what to do. I felt so powerless. I still feel powerless. "

_**Fuck the "what happened?", I got stuck  
They can peel pieces of me off the grill of her truck  
Used to walk with luck, used to hold her hand  
Fell behind then played the role of a slower man…**_

The room went silent except for the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor, reminding Carmen that she was alive. Shane was too busy staring at the sheets to be able to tell what Carmen was doing.

Carmen moved back to her seat and opened up her book. She crossed her legs and leaned back a little to make herself more comfortable.

"That wasn't the only reason," Carmen told her, flipping a page in her novel.

"What?" Shane asked, raising her head.

"I didn't say yes just because I felt bad," Carmen responded without looking up. "I loved you, Shane. I wanted to spend my life with you."

Carmen abruptly stopped right there and took a deep breath. A major part of her hadn't wanted to be there when Shane woke up, knowing what it would lead to.

_**On a pick it up mission, kept it bitter  
Gettin' in a million memories just to forget her  
The difficulty in keepin' emotions controlled  
Cookies for the road, took me by the soul**_

"But that didn't happen, obviously," she started again.

Carmen looked up from her book and was actually relived to see tears forming in Shane's eyes because the same thing was happening to her.

"I'm really sorry to hear about Jenny," Carmen said before sniffing quietly.

"Yeah, me too," Shane responded feebly.

_**Hunger for the drama, hunger for the nurture  
Gonna take it further, the hurt feels like murder  
Interpret the eyes, read the lines on her face  
The sunshine is fake, how much time did I waste?**_

_Dammit!_ Carmen thought. She realized what she was doing, what they were both doing. She wasn't supposed to look Shane in the eyes.

That was the first thing she had told herself. It was always the eyes that made her go back to Shane and forgive her, no matter what she had done. It was the eyes made her get into that shower, hug her, and take her back. It was the eyes that haunted her dreams and even her everyday conscious mind. It was the eyes that kept her away from Jenny's funeral and most of West Hollywood.

She didn't want to forgive her, remind herself of the good side of Shane, the parts that she knew were always in pain. The parts of Shane, no all parts of Shane that she didn't want to care about anymore. When they first met, Shane was the only one with the scars and damaged past. Now, they were almost even.

Suddenly, Carmen stood up and began to head for the door. She wiped a few tears away from her face when Shane called her name.

"Carmen?" she called again.

Carmen slowly turned around and just shook her head.

She wanted to scream and yell. She wanted assault Shane make her even more miserable than she already was, but that wasn't going to do anything.

_**Fuck you Lucy for leaving me  
Fuck you Lucy for not needing me  
I wanna say fuck you because I still love you  
No, I'm not okay, and I don't know what to do**_

She just let out a great breath and rested her hand on the doorframe. She looked around the room and Shane's crumpled form before getting her nerve and nodding a little.

"I need to go," she said before she walked away.

_**And everyone in his life would mistake it as love  
Everyone in his life would mistake it as love  
Everyone in his life would mistake it as love**_

Once she got to the elevator, Carmen let out a quiet sob. She glad she was alone.

She leaned back against the wall and placed her hand on the bar behind her. She looked up at the florescent ceiling lights buzzing above her head.

"Fuck," she breathed, shaking her head.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!" she pounded her fist into the wall without even thinking until the pain made her realize what she was doing.

_**Do I sound mad? Well I guess I'm a little pissed.  
Every action has a point, five points make a fist.  
You close 'em, you swing 'em, it's hurts when it hits.  
And the truth can be a bitch, but if the boot fits.**_

She was able to compose herself a little as the elevator door opened. She stepped off and walked out of the hospital, telling herself not to look back.

She couldn't believe she had lost it. After all this time, she'd still lost her nerve in front Shane. After all this time, it still stung.

_**I got an idea: You should get a tattoo that says "Warning"  
That's all, just a warning, so the potential victim can take a left and save breath,  
And avoid you, sober and upset in the morning**_

She thought she was over it. She was sure she over it.

And maybe she was, but it still hurt like hell.

_**And everyone in his life would mistake it as love  
Everyone in his life would mistake it as love  
Everyone in his life would mistake it as love**_


End file.
